Ferdinand Columbus, or Fernando Colon, was born three or four years before his father sailed on his first voyage.[240] His father’s favor at Court opened the way, and in attendance upon Prince Juan and Queen Isabella he gained a good education. When Columbus went on his fourth voyage, in 1502, the boy, then thirteen years of age, accompanied his father. It is said that he made two other voyages to the New World; but Harrisse could only find proof of one. His later years were passed as a courtier, in attendance upon Charles V. on his travels, and in literary pursuits, by which he acquired a name for learning. He had the papers of his father,[241] and he is best known by the Life of Columbus which passes under his name. If it was written in Spanish, it is not known in its original form, and has not been traced since Luis Colon, the Duque de Veraguas, son of Diego, took the manuscript to Genoa about 1568. There is some uncertainty about its later history; but it appeared in 1571 at Venice in an Italian version made by Alfonzo de Ulloa, and was entitled _Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelle quali s’ ha particolare & vera relatione della vita, & de’ fatti dell’Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre_. It is thought that this translation was made from an inaccurate copy of the manuscript, and moreover badly made. It begins the story of the Admiral’s life with his fifty-sixth year, or thereabout; and it has been surmised that an account of his earlier years—if, indeed, the original draft contained it—was omitted, so as not to obscure, by poverty and humble station, the beginnings of a luminous career.[242] Ferdinand died at Seville, July 12, 1539,[243] and bequeathed, conditionally, his library to the Cathedral. The collection then contained about twenty thousand volumes, in print and manuscript; and it is still preserved there, though, according to Harrisse, much neglected since 1709, and reduced to about four thousand volumes. It is known as the Biblioteca Colombina.[244] Spotorno says that this Luis Colon, a person of debauched character, brought this manuscript in the Spanish language to Genoa, and left it in the hands of Baliano de Fornari, from whom it passed to another patrician, Giovanni Baptista Marini, who procured Ulloa to make the Italian version in which it was first published.[245]